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It's more complicated than that. The World Health Organization estimates that 7 million people die prematurely each year due to the effects of air pollution, and 1 in 8 deaths globally are linked to pollution.
Firstly as the use of fossil fuels has increased so has life expectancies. If you are going to compare the cons you also have to consider the benefits of cheap energy. If someone freezes to death with clear lungs they are still dead. This is actually an important point where China is concerned becsue a lot of that coal usage is for domestic heating.
Honestly those figures are completely misrepresented. If you look at the figures the EPA releases such as "X amount of heart attacks" the methodology used to compile those numbers considers every particle of pollution equally as dangerous regardless of exposure. If you eat chicken wings for breakfast lunch and dinner, smoke and guzzle a case of beer each day is it the air pollution that killed you? If you are that guy air pollution is still a contributing factor in your death, every death in the US has a small percentage attributed to air pollution under those stats used by the EPA.
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So just pouring on the coal is not the answer. Especially since the sun provides, IIRC, 71 times the energy to the earth each day than mankind currently uses. Switching to clean, renewable energy generation that derives from this endless supply of power... hydroelectric, solar electric, and wind electric especially... can reverse this deadly trend towards more and more pollution. Even the Chinese have recognized this and are beginning to take action.
The Chinese recognize they have a very limited domestic supply of coal relative to their population. They will burn through it with the next 3 to 4 decades, every piece of it.
I am not sure there is a direct correlation between increased use of fossil fuels and life expediencies. While we have to take power into account for medical discoveries, I think that increase in medical care and technology has increased life more than just "power" alone. Yes, not freezing to death is a good thing. NONE of us would say, gee, I need to be warm, but the only way I can do that is to burn coal and I won't do that.
Apparently we have a lot of coal to burn through. Because of this and how cheap it is, the article implies that other technologies are going to sit stagnant now. And yes, the modern nations of the world should be helping developing nations start out with clean(er) and more efficient technology.
OpenD - I hope the CCS system works. Afterall, carbon among other GHGs are currently trapped in the ground anyways. And one of the things that scientists are worried about if the permafrost starts to melt.
Apparently we have a lot of coal to burn through. Because of this and how cheap it is, the article implies that other technologies are going to sit stagnant now. And yes, the modern nations of the world should be helping developing nations start out with clean(er) and more efficient technology.
So basically what you are saying is not only am I expected to pay for increased energy costs in this country but in third world nations as well. That is what it boils down too.
While on this topic carefully note what nations like China and India are offering, they are offering to lower their carbon intensity. That's not a cap and by increasing efficiency which is something they are going to do with or without an agreement emissions rates can and will increase. They are basically offering nothing.
I am not sure there is a direct correlation between increased use of fossil fuels and life expediencies. While we have to take power into account for medical discoveries, I think that increase in medical care and technology has increased life more than just "power" alone. Yes, not freezing to death is a good thing. NONE of us would say, gee, I need to be warm, but the only way I can do that is to burn coal and I won't do that.
Apparently we have a lot of coal to burn through. Because of this and how cheap it is, the article implies that other technologies are going to sit stagnant now. And yes, the modern nations of the world should be helping developing nations start out with clean(er) and more efficient technology.
OpenD - I hope the CCS system works. Afterall, carbon among other GHGs are currently trapped in the ground anyways. And one of the things that scientists are worried about if the permafrost starts to melt.
Without power there is no medical industry as we know it. How do you explain the longer life spans unless the use of fossil fuels directly contributed to the establishment the very industries, including the medical industry that made it so?
I say there is absolutely a direct correlation to longer life spans and the use of fossil fuels. Furthermore, none of the so called "green" energy alternatives could exist without using fossil fuels to generate power to manufacture them on a scale necessary to sustain any condition of society as we demand it exist.
A longer lifespan because of the use of fossil fuels and a degrading of the environment which will eventually shorten lifespans because of the same is obvious.
Firstly as the use of fossil fuels has increased so has life expectancies. If you are going to compare the cons you also have to consider the benefits of cheap energy.
Thank you so much for picking up the slack and bringing some sense here.
We should be green where possible, but shouldn't harm people who are out of sight to make ourselves feel superior. A human suffering anywhere for a theory of someone on this forum is an atrocity imo. The IPCC is a political organization, and is controlled mostly by OECD countries that trade with 1st and 2nd world nations various agreements often at the expense of smaller 2nd and most 3rd world nations.
The politics of rationalizing harm to others is very upsetting to some, but to many, divorced from the harm they cause, it seems reasonable.
So just pouring on the coal is not the answer. Especially since the sun provides, IIRC, 71 times the energy to the earth each day than mankind currently uses.
Physics may not be your forte, which is fine, not everyone can be a physicist.
However, this may help. We live on a boiling hot, a horribly hot, grossly hot, amazingly hot cinder of a planet compared to the average of the rest of the universe. Our hot cinder of a planet is heated by vast quantities of energy from the sun.
If you could bottle all that solar energy, yes indeed, you'd have more energy than we use today.
You'd have other problems, we'd have no heat on our planet from the sun, our air would be a liquid less than 2 inches thick, our temperature would be close to absolute zero, and there would be no life on earth.
So yes, just tell yourself about the vast quantities of energy the sun places on the earth every day, and think next time that that very energy is what is keeping us from a thin liquid atmosphere and a temperature near absolute zero.
The angel of energy death will spare those with a mark above their doors
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Originally Posted by thecoalman
So basically what you are saying is not only am I expected to pay for increased energy costs in this country but in third world nations as well. That is what it boils down too.
The religious among environmentalists require atonement for the sin of using energy by paying the penance of a lower standard of living. This penance oddly seems to be mostly inflicted upon those who environmentalists don't consider worthy, most environmentalists are self exempt from penance as ministers of the true faith.
I prefer environmental science, not religion, but to so many it's a religious belief. This is unfortunate.
Physics may not be your forte, which is fine, not everyone can be a physicist.
However, this may help. We live on a boiling hot, a horribly hot, grossly hot, amazingly hot cinder of a planet compared to the average of the rest of the universe. Our hot cinder of a planet is heated by vast quantities of energy from the sun.
If you could bottle all that solar energy, yes indeed, you'd have more energy than we use today.
You'd have other problems, we'd have no heat on our planet from the sun, our air would be a liquid less than 2 inches thick, our temperature would be close to absolute zero, and there would be no life on earth.
So yes, just tell yourself about the vast quantities of energy the sun places on the earth every day, and think next time that that very energy is what is keeping us from a thin liquid atmosphere and a temperature near absolute zero.
Physics may not be your forte, which is fine, not everyone can be a physicist.
However, this may help. The First Law of Thermodynamics is that energy can neither be created nor destroyed, but can change form. It is in the changing of form that we use it to do work. Utilizing solar energy to do work would not turn the planet into an iceball, because the net energy does not change.
Our planetary ecology has long been balanced in a stasis that is favorable to our form of life. The same amount of energy radiates back into space as reaches us from the sun, whether that sunlight falls on desert rocks and is radiated back into space as infrared heat, or it falls on PV panels, is converted into electricity, which turns motors and powers electronics, which converts the electricity into heat, which in turn is radiated back into space.
On the other hand, the ever expanding burning of fossil fuels since the Industrial Age began utilizes the solar energy "bottled" by plants millions of years ago, but destabilizes the normal balance of energy from the sun by releasing large quantities of CO2 which allows the higher frequencies of energy from the sun to penetrate our atmosphere to reach the surface, but partially blocks the lower frequencies from radiating back into space, causing a net heat gain. It is this greenhouse effect, the trapping of solar energy in our atmosphere, that is the core problem threatening our planetary future.
And the effects are both cumulative and accelerating. Loss of polar ice caps and snow fields reduces the amount of sunlight that normally would bounce back into space. And consequent melting of arctic permafrost promises to release huge quantities of methane, another greenhouse gas, into the atmosphere, further accelerating the greenhouse warming effect. And that doesn't even touch on the effects of large scale deforestation, which not only turns the sequestered carbon of the trees and understory into atmospheric carbon dioxide, but also reduces the total capacity of the planet to turn CO2 into the oxygen we breathe. And even the most optimistic have to admit that burning our fossil fuels is not sustainable, while utilizing solar energy is.
On every front are "cons" associated with using fossil fuels, but with one huge "pro" trumping all the concerns... it's cheaper than utilizing renewable energy. However it is the recognition that the large scale use of this cheap source of energy is not sustainable, and that it endangers the health of the planet and all living things on it that forms the basis of what we call Green Living.
And that's the purpose of this forum, to discuss ways to achieve sustainability in life, from the micro to the macro view.
Last edited by OpenD; 04-19-2014 at 01:31 PM..
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Physics, physics and math
